Councilman facing ethics punishment
Councilman Andy King is facing suspension, a “significant” fine, loss of his committee memberships and placement of a monitor in his office for the duration of his term after the City Council Ethics Committee found allegations of harassment and ethics violations “substantiated.”
The full Council is expected to meet and consider the findings next week, Ethics Committee Chairman Steven Matteo (R-Staten Island) said Tuesday, after the panel unanimously recommended punishment for a variety of shocking infractions.
“During interviews, allegation after allegation and problem after problem surfaced in the functioning of Council member King’s office,” Matteo said after the committee met for nearly three hours to discuss the investigation.
King “facilitated numerous conflicts of interest in the office that benefit both himself and his wife,” Matteo said, declining to provide details. A redacted version of the investigators’ findings will become public by end of day Wednesday, Matteo said.
He also “allowed his office to become unsafe and disorderly by condoning the conduct of a supervisor who repeatedly physically threatened persons in the office,” according to Matteo.
King did not immediately answer a request for comment.
King allegedly retaliated against staffers who cooperated with investigators probing both the latest allegations and a previous ethics complaint in 2017.
“With regard to the current investigation, Councilmember King repeatedly intimidated and punished staff who he had thought would cooperate with the committee’s investigation,” Matteo said.
The current probe began in March after a former King staffer claimed to the state Department of Labor that the staffer had been fired due to gender-based harassment.
That staffer eventually stopped cooperating with Council investigators, according to Matteo, leaving the committee “unable to fully investigate gender-based harassment allegations.”
Amid the 2017 investigation, which led the Ethics Committee to force King to undergo sensitivity training, the councilman demanded that staff who cooperated with investigators admit they had done so.
“Of the three staffers who admitted they had cooperated, one was driven out of his office, [King] attempted to fire another and the third must have clearly gotten the message, because even a subpoena wasn’t enough to compel that staffer’s cooperation,” Matteo said.
King himself tried to stonewall the Ethics Committee, refusing to speak with investigators except for one short conversation, Matteo said.
The chairman did not state the length of the proposed suspension or the size of the fine, and did not provide any other details about the recommended punishments.
“This is behavior that cannot be tolerated,” Matteo said.